The criticism that angered Denzel Washington: “Go home, get a life”
In his four-decade career as one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, Denzel Washington has seen it all. He’s made hits, and he’s made flops. He’s won Academy Awards for some of his most outstanding performances, while other equally great turns have gone unnoticed. His films have sparked conversation and even contributed to social change, but they have also courted controversy at times. One criticism that Washington has no time for reared its head around the recent release of Gladiator II, though, and he made sure to tell the world exactly how he felt about it.
The excitement was palpable from the moment the trailer for Ridley Scott’s hugely anticipated sequel hit the internet in July. Fans had waited so long that they probably never thought a sequel to the original 2000 Gladiator would ever materialise. However, the impossible finally became reality when they saw Paul Mescal in Roman armour and Washington parading around in his gold finery. Then, the historians had their say.
“Total Hollywood bullshit,” raged University of Chicago classics professor Dr Shadi Bartsch. She was deriding a scene from the trailer in which Rome’s famous Colosseum is filled with water for a naval battle between two large ships. Interestingly, though, the battle itself wasn’t what she had an issue with. In fact, there is a historical precedent for the iconic arena being filled with water for a battle, as impractical as that sounds. Instead, Scott included an additional flourish that annoyed her: the sharks swimming in the water, hungrily waiting for wounded Romans to plunge into their bloody depths.
She dismissed the idea by saying, “I don’t think Romans knew what a shark was.”
In another trailer scene, Washington’s Macrinus is seen drinking tea in an open cafe with Tim McInnerny’s politician, Senator Thraex. Bartsch was also told about a scene that sees Thraex reading the morning newspaper with his tea, and this sent her over the edge. You see, the Romans couldn’t have read newspapers – because the printing press didn’t even exist for another 1,200 years. She exclaimed, “They did have daily news — Acta Diuma — but it was carved and placed at certain locations. You had to go to it; you couldn’t hold it at a cafe.”
Amusingly, she added, “Also, they didn’t have cafes!”
When it came time to promote the movie, Washington directly addressed some of these historical inaccuracies in interviews. He was also forced to address his own casting, as many doubted there would have been any Black people in Ancient Rome. While Washington conceded that the real-life Macrinus probably wasn’t Black, he took umbrage at the idea that people of his skin colour couldn’t have made up part of Rome’s citizenry.
The Equalizer star semi-jokingly told The Times, “I’m sure people are already saying… ‘Well, there were no Black people in Rome.’ Oh, really? Well, how did they get so dark-skinned? You know, somebody rolled through there. Go call up Hannibal. Maybe he did.”
At the heart of the matter, Washington’s belief regarding historical accuracy in movies is very similar to that of his director, who has been beefing with historians for years. In essence, these things aren’t documentaries, so don’t treat them as such.
Washington concluded, “You eat popcorn while you’re watching it. It’s not a history lesson; tell them to go home, get a life. It’s not accurate, who cares? When I watched Shaft when I was a kid, I didn’t go, ‘Oh, that’s not a 1975 car he’s driving.’ Who cares? Lighten up.”
